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Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

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Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#21

It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them. Our society is like a runaway train and we can try and apply the brakes here and there, but everyday people don't have the power to say, "This is wrong, lets do something different." If it was just a case of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer then, yes perhaps the problem is…

I don't think this is not mainly an issue of capitalism. The thing is that it is essentially impossible to solve democracy without also solving capitalism.

Capitalism's issues are not just the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The main issue of capitalism is distribution of power. The only ways of fixing medical insurance, college loans, gun violence is to directly oppose the power structures created by capitalism. Capitalism is not to be understood as a purely economic system, it is also a political system, as it decides how power and decisions are used and taken. Politics is not just "what the government does" or "what parties do", the shareholders of your company deciding you should be fired is also politics.

In this optic, it is more easily understood why capitalism will and does frustrate any attempt of creating true democracy. Capitalism is directly opposed to true democracy, as capitalism relies on private ownership and thus private decision, which is opposed to democratic decision. This is why when trying to establish public healthcare or regulating medical insurance, you will be opposed by the system that is capitalism, either by crashing of the stock market, adverse action by drug companies, massive lobbying, peddling of lies via mass media, and so on. Same for college loans - in order to fix the root cause issue behind college loans you will need to reduce the cost of tuition massively through either socialization of education or direct opposition to the ability of the private owner to do as they fit with their investment in order to maximize their interests (capitalism).

Gun violence is really caused by underlying sociological issues which are caused by ideology (in the sociological sense of the word), and distribution of resources. Both of those are the way they are either largely or completely because of capitalism.

Police brutality is in no small part because the role of police is diametrically opposed to the interests of most. Indeed, police almost only enforces laws that maintain wealth concentration towards the rich and have very low efficacy when dealing with theft from the common man (wage theft is by far the majority of all theft in the US, and it's not even close, yet try to call the cops on your boss short-changing you), even cases of murder show incredibly high class bias. This leads to police and justice interactions being overwhelmingly negative towards people they are biased against, such as racial minorities and poor people in general.

As for global warming, this is an obvious issue of capitalism.

And, most of all, Democracy has always been biased for the owner class and against the worker class. Read the original US constitution, for an obvious proof.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#22
Change would had an opportunity to happen if by far most people could think by themselves and not be easily manipulated. But both cognitive bias and bad education systems (sometimes intended that way) goes against that possibility.

The system is fragile, but shaking it won't lead to an stable state (not in the same conditions/number of participants that we are having now) but to an unstable and/or fragile one.

And we are running out of time to make the big changes in global culture needed to derive this into an antifragile state. The ball is already rolling toward climate change, mass extinctions, ecosystems destruction and the world becoming unsustainable for most of us, and we will not be able to stop it.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#23

It's not Capitalism that is failing. It's Democracy and Government. We can't effectively identify problems and pass laws that fix them. Our society is like a runaway train and we can try and apply the brakes here and there, but everyday people don't have the power to say, "This is wrong, lets do something different." If it was just a case of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer then, yes perhaps the problem is…

I would say the rich getting richer allows the people who the politicians want to suck up to escape from most of the problems in the country, and therefore allows them to haggle with politics and policies instead of really focus on pressing issues. Easy fix would be to limit how much wealth you can amass. Who really needs more than $50million?

Who needs more than full belly and a roof over their heads?

It's weird to want to cap somebodies worth. We need to limit how people and companies can use their wealth to exert power or make more money.

How about a rule where you can't charge more rent that what it costs to maintain the property.

How about a rule where you can't sell drugs after you have recouped the cost to develop them.

How about a rule where you can't donate money to a politician or political party.

How about a rule where employees of a company automatically paid dividends before shareholders are.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case can I interest you to market socialism? It is almost exactly that, except that you immediately start sharing your wealth as soon as you have a employees, in different amounts.

Market socialism sounds like what China does rather than preventing amassed wealth, but sure any system that accomplishes the goal of not letting individuals unreasonably impose their will on anyone else sounds good. Votes are powerful, but uber rich people can undermine voting.

China does not have market socialism, sadly. Market socialism directly prevents wealth accumulation. Indeed, the idea of market socialism is that we keep the free market and low government control over industrial matters, and instead make all companies owned by their employees. This would slow down accumulation of wealth substantially, as I don't know of any company you could work at that would make you accumulate more than 100 million dollars as a lowly worker, without any investment.

The closest thing we have to market socialism right now would be worker co-ops, which do not allow massive wealth accumulation, as all wealth created would be shared equally among employees of a given firm.

(Investment would also largely be impossible, because you would not be able to own stocks in such a system. Instead, interest would have to be accumulated via financing, which is much fairer to distribution of power and prevents accumulation of wealth.)

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the rich getting richer allows the people who the politicians want to suck up to escape from most of the problems in the country, and therefore allows them to haggle with politics and policies instead of really focus on pressing issues. Easy fix would be to limit how much wealth you can amass. Who really needs more than $50million?

Who needs more than full belly and a roof over their heads? It's weird to want to cap somebodies worth. We need to limit how people and companies can use their wealth to exert power or make more money. How about a rule where you can't charge more rent that what it costs to maintain the property. How about a rule where you can't sell drugs after you have recouped the cost to develop them. How about a rule where you ca…

I mean, that's the abolition of capitalism, though. You are literally describing market socialism. The only thing left is to automatically make workers the main shareholders, and making shareholders nothing more than financiers that must be repaid their interest.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the rich getting richer allows the people who the politicians want to suck up to escape from most of the problems in the country, and therefore allows them to haggle with politics and policies instead of really focus on pressing issues. Easy fix would be to limit how much wealth you can amass. Who really needs more than $50million?

Who needs more than full belly and a roof over their heads? It's weird to want to cap somebodies worth. We need to limit how people and companies can use their wealth to exert power or make more money. How about a rule where you can't charge more rent that what it costs to maintain the property. How about a rule where you can't sell drugs after you have recouped the cost to develop them. How about a rule where you ca…

That's a lot of rules though, and rules bog a society down.

It definitely sounds weird, but seriously, why would you need more than $50 million to live a good life? At that point, you're probably imposing on other people rather than focusing on yourself.

What do you do with wealth after $50mil? You probably exercise your influence on people who would be much better off being helped by people who are closer to the problem. Those people don't have enough money? Well I bet with capped wealth, we'd see a lot more competition, and there would be an explosion of opportunities to create modest wealth. A (somewhat) natural way of spreading wealth.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market socialism sounds like what China does rather than preventing amassed wealth, but sure any system that accomplishes the goal of not letting individuals unreasonably impose their will on anyone else sounds good. Votes are powerful, but uber rich people can undermine voting.

China does not have market socialism, sadly. Market socialism directly prevents wealth accumulation. Indeed, the idea of market socialism is that we keep the free market and low government control over industrial matters, and instead make all companies owned by their employees. This would slow down accumulation of wealth substantially, as I don't know of any company you could work at that would make you accumulate mo…

Well that sounds great. I think it would be better to have a somewhat hierarchical compensation system instead of a flat compensation structure. Who's going to want to do hard and impressive work if the .5x intern is getting rich as fast as you are?

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China does not have market socialism, sadly. Market socialism directly prevents wealth accumulation. Indeed, the idea of market socialism is that we keep the free market and low government control over industrial matters, and instead make all companies owned by their employees. This would slow down accumulation of wealth substantially, as I don't know of any company you could work at that would make you accumulate mo…

Well that sounds great. I think it would be better to have a somewhat hierarchical compensation system instead of a flat compensation structure. Who's going to want to do hard and impressive work if the .5x intern is getting rich as fast as you are?

Oh yes, of course. Wages would not be flat, they would be determined by a vote of the employees. In real-world examples, people there for longer, that have more education, that do a more demanding job or have more responsibility have different salaries, up to a certain limit of inequality, of course.

Even Karl Marx didn't want total equality, he thought (rightly) that it was absurd.

Crucially though, the thing is that while wages are not the same, ownership is equal. Most of the wealth would be in shares of the company, not in wages, because wages are needed for consumption and because investment would be much more difficult.

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#29

What about this alternative: Capitalism where you can't amass more personal wealth than $100M. The only reason I would think you would need more money than that is if you wanted to push ideas that the population would not vote for. I have much more faith in people closer to issues solving them with more good faith and efficiency than unelected billionaires being effectively philanthropic. I would rather see more rich…

What if you started a company, grew it and went public and in the ensuing years the markets pushed its value up such that your share was suddenly, and temporarily, worth more than $100m? Are you forced to sell the excess and be forced to pay a capital gains tax and reduce your control over your company?

Re: Is It Time to Talk About Post-Capitalism in America?

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who needs more than full belly and a roof over their heads? It's weird to want to cap somebodies worth. We need to limit how people and companies can use their wealth to exert power or make more money. How about a rule where you can't charge more rent that what it costs to maintain the property. How about a rule where you can't sell drugs after you have recouped the cost to develop them. How about a rule where you ca…

That's a lot of rules though, and rules bog a society down. It definitely sounds weird, but seriously, why would you need more than $50 million to live a good life? At that point, you're probably imposing on other people rather than focusing on yourself. What do you do with wealth after $50mil? You probably exercise your influence on people who would be much better off being helped by people who are closer to the pro…

but, who cares how much somebody else has. The problem is not how much somebody else has.

The problem is that a person can work 40 hours a week for 40 years and not have anything to show for it.

And the reason they don't have anything to show is because they find themselves surrounded by vampires sucking them dry from paycheck to paycheck.

"Inequality" is not a problem that needs solving, its a symptom of a society that doesn't reward people for work, it instead rewards those that already own everything.

I don't care if Mr. Fancy Pants flies everywhere in his private plane and eats off a gold plate.

I only care if he uses his wealth to take my money from me. And in that case I would like the government to protect me. The same way they protect me from being mugged on the street, with laws.

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